Posted on 03/05/2006 10:14:04 AM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
Evolution bill stirs debate on origin of life, religion
TIM TALLEY
Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY - While other states are backing away from teaching alternatives to evolution, the Oklahoma House passed a bill Thursday encouraging schools to expose students to alternative views about the origin of life.
The measure, passed on a 77-10 vote, gives teachers the right to teach "the full range of scientific views on the biological or chemical origins of life." The measure stops short of requiring the teaching of "intelligent design" alongside the theory of evolution in science classes.
Its author, Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said evolution is taught in some classrooms as if it were scientific fact although the theory, developed in the 19th century by Charles Darwin, is neither observable, repeatable or testable and is not solid science.
"They are getting a one-sided view of evolution," said Kern, a former teacher. "Let's teach good, honest science."
Critics said the lessons would be more appropriate in religion or philosophy classes than in science class. They said the measure would take control from local school boards on developing lesson plans and violates the constitutional prohibition on government endorsement of specific religious views.
"I think we're about to open a slippery slope here," said Rep. Danny Morgan, D-Prague. In December, a federal judge blocked attempts to teach intelligent design in high school biology classes in Dover, Pa.
"We're going to be right back in the courthouse," Morgan said.
Kern said her bill does not promote a particular religious point of view but promotes critical thinking by students by exposing them to all sides of a scientific debate.
"This bill is not about a belief in God. It is not about religion. It is about science," Kern said. "I'm not asking for Sunday school to be in a science class."
Evolution teaches that all organisms are connected by genealogy and have changed through time through several processes, including natural selection.
Intelligent design teaches that life is so well-ordered that it must have been created by a higher power. Critics argue that the theory is merely repackaged creationism, which teaches that the Earth and all life were created by God.
Supporters said exposing students to different viewpoints will create lively classroom debate.
"Do you think you come from a monkeyman?" said Rep. Tad Jones, R-Claremore. "Did we come from slimy algae 4.5 billion years ago or are we a unique creation of God? I think it's going to be exciting for students to discuss these issues."
Opponents said alternative theories on the origin of life are a matter of faith, not science. "God truly is the creator of heaven and Earth, but I can't prove that," said Rep. Al Lindley, D-Oklahoma City.
The bill now goes to the state Senate, where similar legislation has been defeated in the past.
On Tuesday, lawmakers in Utah defeated a bill requiring public school students be told that evolution is not empirically proven. In Ohio, school curriculum is undergoing change following the Pennsylvania ruling that intelligent design should not be taught alongside evolution in public schools.
Kansas has adopted language to encourage students to explore arguments against evolution, but the standards have not been tied to any lesson plans or statewide testing.
The time scale was independently confirmed and quantified by radiometric dating.
And how does that happen? Creationists screech about every error that was ever made using radiometric dating. Their bottom line is that dates derived from such means don't mean anything and are of no use.
The radiocarbon method has been calibrated against both tree-rings and against historical items of known age (e.g., items from Egyptian tombs).
The tree-ring method is easy; find some standing dead bristlecone pines (the White Mountains of California are a good place). Count the rings as far back as you can by matching the overlapping ring sequences from a variety of trees. This takes you back past 12,000 years. Then date a couple thousand individual rings and construct a calibration curve to account for atmospheric variation. (The need for this was discovered in 1958, only a decade after the method was first developed.)
The second key is not to trust a single date. Get a bunch, and use good samples! The older dates can have greater effects from contamination (that's why some folks could date a dinosaur fossil from particular ground conditions and get a date of 50,000 years or some such; doesn't mean anything).
We are working on a site component now which dates between 3,300 and 7150 years ago (based on 16 radiocarbon dates). We have 9 more samples cooking, and are thinking of doing perhaps one more based on some other data that just came up.
So, the method is pretty accurate if you use some common sense and a lot of care. Where the problem arises, is that some folks cannot abide by the answers this and other scientific disciplines are producing so they are attacking everything they can think of.
By the way, there is no evidence of a large-scale flood in this site.
You have to have a lot of faith to believe that the precision of the earth is unintentional. The real problem with evolution is that it does not take into account the human spirit. If there is no difference from man and apes then murder is ok. Unlike animals, humans have everlasting spirits that exist somewhere forever. There is this thing called truth which means somethings are and somethings aren't. I could say I live on a square or triangular planet but the truth is that we live on a globe. So what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Mainly, that things only work a certain way. Evolution and intelligence are incompatible. The truth is man is getting more morally corrupt.
Take for instance a bombadier beetle that has two chemicals in its chambers which when mixed together creates an explosion but it also has a part that keeps it from being blown up. So one day the beetle decided to mix the chemicals and BOOM! No more beetle since the other part had not evolved yet. Why would a little beetle have explosive components but also have a built-in inhibitor that keeps it from blowing up itself? Your are going to tell me some unintelligent mechanism caused this little beetle? We just happen to have light, sound, and electricital waves. No, someone of high intelligence designed mankind and we are made in His image. Evolution presupposes that man is greatest being out there but people have repeatedly seen angelic beings. We are saying that the logical laws of physics and chemistry do not have a Lawgiver behind them.
One day this will be a mute point because evolution will be outlawed world-wide. Creationism will rule the day because the Word (Jesus Christ)will rule this world as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Do the rock strata represent eons of time? There is a wealth of evidence that the rock strata do not represent vast periods of time. For example, the huge Coconino sandstone formation in the Grand Canyon is about 100 m thick and extends to some 250,000 km2 in area. The large-scale cross-bedding shows that it was all laid down in deep, fast-flowing water in a matter of days.Just wrong. It's full of fossilized surfaces bearing fossil tracks, and raindrop imprints. It's desert sandstone that took a long time to accumulate.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC365.html.
What few flimsy items they cite for this do not fill the bill. Some (unmineralized dinosaur bone) aren't even true.Evidence that dinosaurs and humans co-existed
"Plenty" exist, and even evolutionists cite them. But there wasn't room for AiG to cite any, and evolutionists obviously aren't worried. The example buried in the footnote, "Precambrian" pollen, doesn't bear up under examination.Out-of-sequence fossils
There was a paper on the Coconino sandstone in the most recent CRSQ:
http://www.creationresearch.org/members/crsq/42/42_3/2005v42n3p163.pdf
"Evidence that dinosaurs and humans co-existed"
You forgot to mention the hundreds of eyewitness accounts over history, the drawings, and even recent reports of saurapod dinosaurs in the congo.
"Out-of-sequence fossils"
What about out-of-place artifacts? There are many more of those than out-of-sequence fossils.
You are grasping at straws (or strawmen).
One of the first things I was taught in grad school--you have to learn the patterns (regularities) first; then you will be in a position to evaluate the out-of-place items.
You are grasping at anything you can find to try to support your belief. That fine, but its not science.
Facts that don't fit the accepted theory can build up and overturn that theory, and that's probably what you are hoping for.
But there is no evidence that is accepted by anyone other than creationists that dinosaurs coexisted with modern humans (Flintstones and Raquel Welsh notwithstanding).
You forgot to mention the hundreds of eyewitness accounts over history, the drawings, and even recent reports of saurapod dinosaurs in the congo.
Talk to Von Daniken. He might be interested.
Where do you think the sediments from the flood came from? Let's say that you have a pre-flood strata that looks like this:
topsoil
underlying rock
deep rock
The land-dwelling bones are going to be in the top two layers, especially given that there is only a few thousand years for them to accumulate. These are ALL going to be decimated and washed away by the flood. How else do you think a global flood would act on existing sediments?
The pre-flood rocks would only contain deep-rock-dwelling organisms. These are almost entirely microbes, which is precisely what we find there. Ariel Roth's "Origins" book has a good description of this on p. 166.
The questions of succession are more interpretational than real succession. Usually they only are successional if you pick and choose fossils. I gave a link which gave several examples of this from human evolution.
The sortings which are there are most likely explained by ecological habitat and physicall sorting actions.
As I said, I haven't investigated geology as much as biology. Two papers which may be of interest (I kept on falling asleep through them) are Woodmorappe's A Diluviological Treatise on the Stratigraphic Separation of Fossils and The Cephalopods in the Creation and the Universal Deluge. These are both available in Studies in Flood Geology.
A good AiG article: How well do paleontologists know fossil distributions?
Washed away to where? Nowhere?
How else do you think a global flood would act on existing sediments?
I would think one flood would make one big sediment layer showing Stokes's Law sorting. There is no "one big flood" residue. The geologic column from Cambrian to Cretaceous, inclusive, is as far from such a thing as can be imagined. It is not what floods do. Anywhere in the world, those layers 1) are not a flood (Stokes's Law) sort, 2) contain fossilized tranquil surface life features at various levels, 3) might contain fossilized non-pillow lava at various levels, 4) might contain scraping or sedimenation from glaciers at various levels, might contain windblown sand or soil deposition at various levels, etc.
Woodmorappe / Peczkis is just double-talking in that abstract. His execrable scholarship earned him his own special section of the Quotations and Misquotations article.
Another example is the prominent evolution denier that goes by the pseudonym "John Woodmorappe" whose real name is Jan Peczkis. This is easily documented by the fact that Woodmorappe's address listed in an article of his in the Creation Research Society Quarterly is identical to the listing for Jan Peczkis, that Peczkis has the same geology degree as Woodmorappe, and that Woodmorappe claims to be a teacher while Peczkis is a teacher. The claim that the two are the same person has been in print since 1991 though one poster reports that Peczkis threatened him with legal action for making this claim online. Why bring this up and why would anyone care who Woodmorappe really is? Because in an online article Woodmorappe5 quotes a Peczkis article from the Science Teacher without any mention that they are the same person. Writing something under one name so that it can be quoted and given positive notice using a different name is not honest. It is also worth mentioning that Woodmorappe/Peczkis has a well-deserved reputation for dishonest quoting as well as for name calling and has used some fairly incompetent arguments.Dinosaurs in the Congo? People see pink elephants in Dublin every Saint Paddy's day.
Maybe they're just roommates...
A brief tour of the Amazon reviews by one Jan Peczkis suggests he's also, if not completely a Holocaust denier, then a "well, it's not as if they singled out the Jews, the Poles got persecuted too, and sure the Poles persecuted the Jews, but they deserved it" type.
Perhaps both. Just don't ask to have both in the courtroom at the same time.
There's a word for this in auction houses -- bidding against yourself. It gets ugly when you're caught.
I believe that "Society" has the (Biblically-ordained) right to establish Penalties for Murder, Rape, Assault, and other such violations of Biblical Law.
Beyond that Standard, I do not believe that the State has any right to supercede the authority of Parents over their children in any respect, whatsoever.
Honestly, if a couple of faithfully-married Parents wanted to home-school their children in the productive and useful arts of Residential Plumbing, and nothing else -- then I stand with the Parents, and against the State.
It is a question of Priorities.
Absent a matter of Murder, Rape, Assault, or other such violations of Biblical Law -- I unequivocably prioritize the Family above the State.
Your link is password protected and I won't be joining CRS anytime soon. But I'm sure it's devastating to geology as we know it.
That is because you are a true Christian Libertarian Republican, and not some socialist/fascist masquerading in a conservative gray flannel suit.
Well, there we immediately diverge. I believe in the philosophical tradition of the enlightenment and the social contract, on which our nation is founded.
Beyond that Standard, I do not believe that the State has any right to supercede the authority of Parents over their children in any respect, whatsoever.
So child-labor laws are wrong?
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